Frantz Fanon (July 20, 1925 - December 6, 1961) was a Martinique-born,
French Creole psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and writer whose
works are influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical
theory, and Marxism. As an intellectual, Fanon was a political radical,
and an existentialist humanist concerning the psychopathology of
colonization, and the human, social, and cultural consequences of
decolonization. (Click
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Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in
relative opacity.

Everything can be explained to the people, on the single condition that
you want them to understand.

Fervor is the weapon of choice for the impotent.

He who is reluctant to recognize me opposes me.

I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language. To speak
means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the
morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a
culture, to support the weight of a civilization.

Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect
and remove from our land but from our minds as well.

Mastery of language affords remarkable power.

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are
presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence
cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely
uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so
important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and
even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.

The business of obscuring language is a mask behind which stands the
much bigger business of plunder.

The oppressed will always believe the worst about themselves.

The peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and
everything to gain.

The unpreparedness of the educated classes, the lack of practical links
between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be
said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will give
rise to tragic mishaps.

There is a point at which methods devour themselves.

They realize at last that change does not mean reform, that change does
not mean improvement.

Violence is man re-creating himself.

We believe that an individual must endeavor to assume the universalism
inherent in the human condition.

What I call middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified
in predetermined forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all
progress, all discovery. I call middle-class a closed society in which
life has no taste, in which the air is tainted, in which ideas and men
are corrupt. And I think that a man who takes a stand against this death
is in a sense a revolutionary.

What matters is not to know the world but to change it.

When people like me, they like me 'in spite of my color.' When they
dislike me; they point out that it isn't because of my color. Either
way, I am locked in to the infernal circle.